I assume this is the right forum?

Yes, of course, this is the right place to discuss moderation policy. I have been mainly away from the site the past several days and I had no role in the removal of posts in the Padres thread, so let me offer a somewhat independent moderation viewpoint.

 

The first sentence of the first removed post was this: "This is what you get when you hire shady characters from the government." It was not an off-hand comment, as the rest of the post continued in that vein.

 

The thread being in a baseball forum area, the post invited a major thread-jack to a wholly different topic than the subject at hand. The post also threw aspersions at a large group of people lumped together. So the post managed to violate the two most basic principles in the TD Comment Policy: it amounted to trolling and it was disrespectful. Whether these were the poster's intent isn't pertinent (and indeed I think no additional action was taken against any posters).

 

It looks like an easy call to me, to remove the post and whatever posts that followed up the tangent.